


Nehamah

by tb_ll57



Series: Nor Perish and Decay [6]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:28:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2121909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57





	Nehamah

Rebecca was humming.

Amanda had learnt to love that sound; it was as soft, as sweet as everything Rebecca did. Rebecca would hum when she read, when she sat at her embroidery or at the spinning wheel--she would even hum when they tended their weapons or the horses. Her voice was low and untrained, but it was beautiful, and to Amanda there was nothing more soothing in all the world.

They had spent the evening together discussing Vergil; Amanda found it boring and worthless, but had the heart (and the foresight) not to say so to Rebecca. When at last it had grown too dark to read even by candlelight, they had retired to those small mutual tasks which were a woman’s world after dusk. Rebecca was often to be found weaving these days: the tapestry she was creating was of breathtaking greens and summer yellows, a scene of ancient forests and woodland spirits. Amanda, with the eye of the thief she had always been, could appraise the tapestry as one of incredible worth. The detail was exquisite and it had occupied Rebecca’s ceiling-height loom for as long as Amanda had known this great lady, and had probably been begun more than a decade before. Now it absorbed Rebecca, and she worked on it daily. The gentle click of the shuttle and her soft singing made sleepy music. Amanda, determined to complete at least the task of mending a seam in her favourite gown, soon forgot that she even held the small iron needle and thick woolen thread. The sight of Rebecca’s burnished copper hair falling in soft waves about her long, graceful neck, her slender white hands rising to guide the staff, her slippered foot tapping a rhythm on the rug, it was all a picture of drowsy contentment, and Amanda felt enfolded, included, in Rebecca’s timeless domesticity. Would she ever be so effortlessly feminine as Rebecca? At times she felt like a great clumsy oaf beside her wise and beautiful teacher.

She had been gazing without truly thinking anything for nearly half an hour when the noiseless tingle of a nearing Immortal woke her from her daze. Rebecca, too, had felt it, for she came just slightly off her stool, her hands still and tense against the weave of her tapestry. Their shared sense of uneasiness grew as the buzz intensified; it did not recede, but rather gentled until it could be ignored.

'A visitor?' Amanda ventured.

'Let us hope.' Rebecca stood fully, automatically smoothing the long folds of her skirt. 'Stay here—- I shall return of a moment.'

It was not an easy instruction to obey. Amanda had little patience with rules, having found most of them designed only to bind her from learning anything truly interesting. But she stayed in their small sitting room, absently straightening the drapery at the wide windows, stoking the small fire higher, though it was nearly summer and not at all chilly. She even removed three wine goblets from the chest of drawers and arranged them at the ready, if it was indeed a visitor, and set a bowl of fruit beside them, turning each apple and bunch of grapes to the most artistic advantage in the flickering light of the hearth.

A dip in the barely perceptible tingle beneath her skin warned her of Rebecca’s return. The curtain over the door was lifted by a small hand, and Rebecca entered, a muddy cloak draped over her arm.

'Amanda, the fire—- ah, well done,' she said. She turned back to the doorway to gesture her guest forward. 'Come and greet our guest.'

Amanda did as she was told, bending her knees in a half-hearted bow. It was a man, tallish and bearded and carrying a well-stuffed saddlebag over his shoulder. His hair was short, only chin-length, and his face, though not exactly handsome, was finely carved and appealing. Unfortunately, he smelled as dirty as he looked. Amanda tried to conceal her distaste, opting instead to breathe through her mouth and avoid the stench of horses and woodsmoke.

'My student, Amanda,' Rebecca introduced them. 'Amanda, an old companion, called Benjamin.'

'How do you know Rebecca?' Amanda inquired in her most courteous tone.

'Hush, my dear.' Rebecca held out the cloak to her. 'Find Magda and have her ready a bath, and prepare spare clothing for our visitor. Tell her she will find men’s clothes in the third cupboard, in the green chest.'

Rebecca’s ability to remember precisely where she had stored any of her thousands of possessions always startled Amanda. Benjamin did not react at all. Amanda, staring unabashedly at him, thought he looked horribly weary. There was some deep pain in his face as well, a horrible grief, and as soon as she saw it, she wished, for his sake, that she hadn’t.

'Go along, Amanda,' Rebecca said softly. Amanda jumped, and hurried out, only just remembering to bow again before she slipped through the curtain. Once outside the room, she hiked her skirts up past her ankles and ran through their small dining hall to the stairs, taking them as quickly as she could before racing across the courtyard for the kitchens. The spit-boy and Cook would have gone home, but Magda was exactly where she always was—asleep beside the great kitchen hearth, Rebecca’s two great mastiff dogs sprawled on the stones beside her.

Amanda fell to her knees beside Magda, shaking the old woman awake. 'There’s a guest,' she said hurriedly. 'You are to draw a bath and find clothes, the green closet in the third chest—no, third closet, green chest. His name is Benjamin. Have you ever seen him before, Magda?'

The old nanny stared blearily at her, roused so abruptly from her nap. 'Bath? Guest? When did he come?'

'Only a little earlier. Rebecca knew him. Oh, hurry with the bath. He smells horrible. But he’s not very ugly.' Amanda rose back to her feet. 'Rebecca wanted me to come back quickly and tell her you were doing it all,' she added untruthfully, ignoring the doubtful look she received as Magda climbed huffily to her feet. Rebecca had not exactly said that, it was true—had said nothing to that effect at all, if Amanda were honest. Amanda was not. People were always shooing her away, and she’d realized very young that if she ever wanted to hear anything, she’d have to make sure she did.

By the time she’d climbed the stairs, and crept rather more quietly back to the curtain separating the dining hall from Rebecca’s sitting room, conversation must have been going on forever. She was so anxious to hear something, anything, about this rare guest in Rebecca’s manor that she neglected to remember that Rebecca could sense her coming. She was chagrined to see Rebecca waiting for her at the curtain.

Rebecca offered her a small smile of understanding when Amanda let her shoulders drop, anticipating a second dismissal. But Rebecca only held out her hand for Amanda’s, and drew her back into the room.

Benjamin sat now in the chair Amanda had occupied earlier. He had very long legs, and they spread out before him like great wool-wrapped logs. His long grey tunic fell over his knees, and through a rent in the fabric over his chest, she could see blood staining his plain linen shirt. He had been injured, perhaps even killed, on his journey to the safety of Rebecca’s home. And when he turned his head to watch her enter, Amanda saw with alarm that half his face was covered in old blood, from a wound to the head long healed and gone. Had he not even had time to wash himself?

Rebecca reclaimed her stool as Amanda took the bench against the wall. 'Did he follow you here?' she asked Benjamin, her strong voice solemn, but oddly soothing.

He let his head fall back to the stones behind him. 'I left a false trail as I rode. My true path will be cold, if he should ever stumble on it.'

It was the first time she had heard his voice. It made her start, and she tried to cover her reaction by reaching for the fruit she’d set out. His voice was very deep and full, but cultured and gentle—- not like the voice of the Christian preacher in the village, that was harsh and squeaky, or the stutterings of Rebecca’s pot boy Ralph. And Benjamin spoke with a strange kind of authority and weight. It was the voice of a man who did not have to ask to be obeyed in anything, she thought; it was the male version of Rebecca’s tone. If she had been curious about him before, now she would have died to learn his origins.

Rebecca sat gazing at her tapestry, still only half done, the work of a mortal lifetime. 'Your wife?' she asked, very quietly.

There was no answer for so long that Amanda turned to watch Benjamin in concern. His mouth was pressed into a thin, hard line, and his eyes were black and remote. Only the visible tremble in his hands spoke of the immense control he was exerting over his own body.

'Dead,' he said, finally. 'Pollux gutted her like an animal.'

Amanda couldn’t hide her own gasp. Neither of the other Immortals seemed to hear it. Rebecca crossed the room in two graceful strides, and sank bonelessly into a crouch at Benjamin’s side, taking one of his large clenched fists into her own tiny hands. Her gentle touch had shocked him; then, as Amanda watched in horror, his face crumpled as if it were no more than paper. The sudden harsh sounds of his weeping filled the room as Rebecca drew him into an embrace. He clung to her, his bloody hands clenching in the fabric of her gown, his face buried in her slender shoulder. Amanda, aching for him in his grief, pressed her hands over her mouth.

Rebecca met her eyes, and then looked to the curtain. Later, she mouthed. Amanda obeyed without any thought, fleeing the evidence of such an awful wound.

 

**

 

It was very late when Amanda ventured out of the kitchen again. She had spent hours there with the dogs and Magda, mixing dough for the morning bread bake and kneading it mercilessly. Magda had finally shooed her away, dismayed by the number of loaves that spread out at Amanda’s workstation. 'We’ll have to give it away,' the old woman muttered over and over.

But it was nearing dawn now, and the need to sleep warred with her desire to stay far away from Benjamin and Rebecca. She had slept in the same bed as Rebecca since the first night the older woman had taken her in, and though she knew another space could be readied, she wanted to sleep in her own bed, surrounded by her own things and the comfort of Rebecca’s nearness. Perhaps Benjamin would be asleep now in his own quarters, and Rebecca would welcome her back.

She met her mistress and her guest on the stairwell. There was not room for two people to pass a third on the narrow stairs, and as soon as Amanda saw them, she knew that Benjamin would not be able to pass on his own. Rebecca had spent the past hours plying her visitor with wine. He wore only a sleeping gown now, and his hair was still damp from bathing. His bare feet were clumsy and one hand was pressed to the wall for balance. Rebecca, though she was a tall woman, was hard-pressed to hold him from the other side. Without waiting to be asked, Amanda slipped under his other arm, squeezing him securely between them, and together they levered the man down the steps to the second landing.

Magda had indeed readied a room for Benjamin. It was one of the lavish guest chambers, a wide room facing the south and open to the cool spring breezes that were even now stirring the draperies over the bed. It was a handsome affair with a high canopy and a thick quilt of blue and grey, another of Rebecca’s creations. It took both of them to lay Benjamin out on it; Amanda lifted his heavy legs onto the mattress as Rebecca placed cushions beneath his head. The man was asleep before they had finished, his mouth open slightly and his great beak of a nose tilted up like the prow of a sinking ship.

Rebecca rested wearily against the poster of the bed, one hand lingering near Benjamin’s arm. She seemed very sad for him, and Amanda hesitated only a moment before offering her shoulder again, this time for the woman who had given her a home.

Rebecca gave her a brief, warm smile, and hugged her close to her side. 'You did well tonight, my dearest,' she said softly.

'Is he ill?' Amanda asked, gazing down at the man who lay sprawled like one of Rebecca’s dogs. He didn’t snore, at least. Beneath the cotton of his gown she could see the outline of a muscled chest and arms that would be powerful extensions of a sword. She might have seen more, but Rebecca’s presence prevented her from looking.

'Only an illness of the mind.' Rebecca sighed, and began to comb Benjamin’s hair away from his gaunt face with her fingertips. 'When one of our kind Hunts another, great tragedy can result. He loved his wife with a fierceness I have rarely seen in Immortals. She was a sweet and pretty thing—- so tiny, so fragile. The vision of her death will haunt him for many years.'

Though she had never met the woman and had hardly met Benjamin, the image of the husband and wife together came to Amanda very easily. A melancholy began to fill her with a tender ache of empathy. Almost unconsciously she, too, touched the man—his hard cheekbones, the grooves that stretched from his nose to frame his lips, the bristling hairs of his beard that became softer about the knob of his throat.

Rebecca stepped back abruptly, and Amanda mimicked her. 'Let us hope he sleeps through tomorrow,' the older woman said heavily. 'A dreamless and long sleep will best benefit him now. Did Magda prepare a large breakfast?'

Amanda recalled the dozens of loaves, and flushed slightly. 'Plenty,' she said.

Rebecca managed a small, tired smile. 'Then we will keep some for him, until he wakes.' She squeezed Amanda’s waist with her arm. 'And let us two go to bed now.'

 

**

 

Benjamin stayed within Rebecca’s walls for nearly a fortnight. When he joined them for meals, it was always brief and quiet. Amanda, who knew very little about loss beyond the long-past threat of Rebecca’s abandonment, was at times sympathetic with his sullenness, and other times greatly frustrated. When no Immortals came to Rebecca’s doors it was clear enough that he had, at least for the time, escaped his Hunter. Rebecca knew of Pollux, and described him in great detail for Amanda, should she ever encounter him: a bear of a man with only one eye and a club foot, but a vicious swordsman and an avid Hunter. He had been the death of many of the Immortals Rebecca herself had known when she was young. Benjamin, she explained, was not a man without enemies, though he took heads only when forced to in a Challenge and preferred to live quietly among Mortals.

'But to marry one, knowing they’ll grow old and die,' Amanda had asked, not even sure it was truly a question. Mortals were, in her eyes, brutish and cruel. She had grown into cautious affection for Magda, who seemed to know that she and Rebecca were not of the same stuff as she was, but it was not love.

Rebecca understood her unspoken objections. 'It needs courage and strength to reveal your true nature to a Mortal, and even more to love them, knowing what an end will come, and how quickly. But we cannot choose where we will love, and it is a wise man—- or woman—- who embraces it when it comes.'

Benjamin was a source of fascination for Amanda. She had begun to realise that he must be an old Immortal, perhaps as old as Rebecca. The make and style of his sword were unfamiliar to her, and he carried a flint knife that was worn and well-used. He spoke rarely, but she had seen him reading in Rebecca’s library the scrolls of ancient Greek and the papyrus from Egypt that bore picture-words, not proper writing. Rebecca, pressed nightly by Amanda’s constant demands, had at last admitted that Benjamin was even older than herself. He had, Rebecca revealed, been born in a time when the world was covered in ice, and had described for her once a long journey across frozen mountains, great cats and huge furred elephants with fearsome tusks. When that was, Rebecca had no way of knowing. Though she desperately wanted to know, Amanda knew better than to ask the man himself. He had brushed her aside more than once, politely enough, but Rebecca’s censure was sufficient punishment to prevent her from pressing Benjamin further. Despite her caution, he was, however, in her thoughts almost constantly.

 

**

 

She found him walking the ramparts on a humid and weary evening.

All day storm clouds had threatened, but none had come nearer than the horizon. The air was fraught with coming rain, damp and hot. Rebecca had been short-tempered and retired early, not even staying up to weave; Magda was home with a sick grandchild and would be away in the village for the next several days. Their combined absence left Amanda bored, and a bored Amanda was one who usually found some sort of mischief. Straining against her instinct all day had been hard work, and by dusk, Amanda was a little surly herself. A walk on the ramparts had seemed a novel idea when it came to her, but she’d just as quickly grown weary of the familiar view.

When she turned to leave, he was there.

He did not notice her at first, standing in the shadow of the eastern tower. He wore his grey tunic again, but his legs were bare in the heat, and she saw that his arms were as well. His hair was loose and curling in the listless air; the way he leant against the low stone wall was at once easy and tortured. In the quick bursts of emotion Amanda was prone to, she felt a wash of sadness for him, followed again by a deep interest in this mysterious guest. He was one of the most appealing men she had ever met. Amanda was hardly a virgin, and knew that what she felt was attraction for the lean but sinewy man, so silent and distant. She also knew, however, that there was some old connection between him and Rebecca that was beyond her experience. She had only to remember Benjamin’s first night with them, and the way Rebecca had touched his hair, to turn shy and silent herself.

An inadvertent step alerted him to her presence. He half-turned, but on recognising her, he relaxed.

'Come out, pussy cat,' he called softly.

Amanda left the tower, and joined him against the wall. 'I didn’t want to disturb you.'

'You haven’t.'

He shifted his weight forward to one leg, and arranged his arms to dangle off the edge. Not far from them, the leafy green roof of the forests swayed gently. The buzz of summer insects was like distant thunder. The peace of her surroundings, the gentle current of the river just to the right, the deep brown and green of the trees, the warmth on her face, filled Amanda limb by limb. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the fading orange of the sunset, flinging out a greeting to the emerging stars.

'You’re humming.'

Amanda came back to herself with a crash. 'What?'

He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. 'You’re humming,' he repeated gently.

Amanda brought a hand to her throat in embarrassment. 'I’m sorry,' she managed. 'I was only—- Rebecca hums. I must have taken it from her.'

He smiled for the first time since she had met him. 'It’s all right. It was lovely.'

A faint blush burned her cheek. She lifted her hair away from her neck, and sighed. 'You don’t have to be kind.'

'I’m not, not very often.' He gazed out at the forest as if he were looking at something else.

Something in his voice made her hesitate. Finally, emboldened that he spoke to her at all, she said, 'I doubt your wife would have said that.'

He faced her, his dark brows drawn together. 'Why do you say that, girl?'

'Because even I can see how much you love her.'

It seemed he would have spoken; but nothing emerged. He turned away, but not before she saw that her words had drawn tears to his eyes, and he was blinking rapidly to prevent them. Chastened and concerned, she put her hand on his arm, only to be shaken off.

'I’m sorry,' she blurted. 'I only want to help you!'

'Why?' he demanded. 'You don’t know me. You have no reason to help me.'

'You’re in pain. I just wished—- I just wished you didn’t seem so alone, so lonely.'

His head bowed to his chest. She could see the bitter twist of his mouth, and berated herself silently. Stupid of her to think she could intrude so blithely—- when would she learn to leave well enough alone?

She had convinced herself to leave before she could inflict more damage, and had her back to him when he caught her arm. She turned back, dreading the sharp remark that was not doubt on its way.

'Thank you,' he said.

Her mouth dropped open. 'But I’ve only made it worse!'

He managed a tiny smile. 'For trying,' he clarified. He let her go slowly. 'You didn’t have to.'

Amanda sighed and picked at a loose thread in her skirts. 'Rebecca would have done it well,' she muttered. 'Everything she does is done perfectly.'

'She’s had a long time to practise.' Benjamin rested on his elbows again. He didn’t seem to want her to leave, and Amanda moved closer again tentatively. 'She was once a girl like you. Young and just as nature made you. You’ll have all the time in the world to become a woman.'

It was hard to picture Rebecca as anything but Rebecca. Surely he wasn’t serious? 'I’m afraid nature made me very badly,' Amanda admitted. 'I can’t seem to do anything right. Sometimes I worry—-' Was she truly admitting her deepest fear to a man she barely knew? In a tiny voice that barely seemed to belong to her, she said, 'I worry that I’ll never be what she wants me to be.'

He faced her. He was not much taller than her, she realised, only as tall really as Rebecca, but something about him made him seem taller. His eyes—- she had thought them black, but they were only a commonplace hazel—- his eyes were still so sad, but they were gentle, too.

'She wants you to be true to yourself,' he told her. 'She’s very wise that way.'

'Are you in love with her?'

She surprised him into a short burst of rough laughter. 'In love with Rebecca?'

'It’s just—- that sometimes you seem to be.'

He fell silent. 'Maybe once. Long ago. But our paths are different.'

'I might be in love with you,' she blurted. If it surprised him, it shocked her—- certainly that had not been what she meant to say!

Now he was looking at her again, a little dismayed. A moment later, he took her hands in his, already shaking his head. A strange fluttering feeling in her stomach began to die even before he spoke. 'You’re only young, and confusing pity with love,' he began.

'I’m not so young, and I don’t pity you!'

'Compassion, then. With just a little time it will pass as if it never was.'

'You don’t know that. You’ve fallen in love with Mortals—- you must know exactly how it feels.'

'And I know the folly of giving in to wild impulses,' he answered harshly. 'If not for me then Leah would be alive now. That’s what love is with me—- an invitation to death. Would you risk that?'

His vehemence frightened her. She stepped away from him, and he let her. 'Leave,' he said, preempting her attempt to speak. 'Don’t think on what you said here—- I’ll say nothing to Rebecca, if it worries you. I promise you I will forget it.'

Her temper, always her weakest quality, flared even as she planned to obey him. 'Well, I won’t!' she snapped. 'Why do you assume you know anything about me? I am sorry for your pain, it’s true, but I might have felt the same if I had met you another time, another way. And how can I be true to myself if people are always telling me how to think, how to feel, how to behave?' Her voice had risen to nearly a shout. Suddenly and keenly embarrassed, she clapped her hands over her mouth.

Benjamin was staring at her, looking bewildered and—- yes, as young as she felt. She would never lose her wonder that even the oldest Immortal would never age beyond his first lifetime, that they would always retain some element of their lost youth. And as they looked at each other, Amanda saw the despair he was trying so hard to hold back, lurking always just below the surface and fighting a pitched battle for his control.

She stepped close to him, and kissed him. In only a moment he was kissing her back, and his arms came around her very tightly. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he pulled her to his chest. She rode his grief like a wave, taking it along with his burst of passion, the bruising force of his mouth on hers and the spike of warmth in her gut that spread to everywhere he touched her. They each explored the other’s body haltingly; his palms cupped her breasts, and she found the juncture of his legs where only the layers of clothing they wore separated them. She became aware of the weathered stones of the tower pressing into her back with Benjamin against her front, his lips and teeth on her shoulder, his hair slipping between her fingers. Somehow he lifted her skirts, and she fought with the hem of his long tunic until he moved into her, and she gasped to be suddenly filled. It was short and frantic then, until he released a strangled groan into her hair and the tingle in her groin became an urgent need abruptly satisfied.

It seemed an age later that she became aware of herself. They were sitting together at the base of the tower. She lay against his chest, and Benjamin’s arms held her tenderly. He stroked her hair very slowly and so lightly she barely felt it. It was night, and a quarter moon beamed down on them from a cloudless sky.

'It never rained,' she said.

His chest moved with something that might have been laughter. Amanda moved to free an arm, and touched his cheek—- her fingers came away wet. He was crying silently and without any strength.

'Benjamin?' she whispered.

'Shh,' he whispered. 'Don’t move just yet, please? Let’s just stay here.'

Her throat felt oddly tight. She pressed her face to his neck, and sighed tremulously. Something told her that whatever had brought them together so intensely only minutes ago was already over, and dying.

 

**

 

Benjamin left Rebecca’s manor on the first day of summer. They all understood that he needed to move on, to bury the rest of the life he had had with his wife in his unnamed village in the east. It didn’t ease the goodbyes, Amanda found, but it helped her as she watched him ride away from her own life.

Rebecca touched her shoulder, and together they left the courtyard where Benjamin had saddled his horse and prepared to leave them. They climbed the stairs to Rebecca’s sitting room; as if they had never disrupted their routine, Amanda settled onto her chair with the same unmended dress, and Rebecca took to her stool before the loom. Only when hours had passed and dusk was visible at the window did Amanda feel a quiver in her chest. She bit down on her lower lip to stop it, but the quiver escaped her, and a hot, salty liquid began to burn her eyes.

Rebecca was gone from the loom and at her side in a moment, drawing her to the floor into a motherly embrace. Amanda cried, but only briefly, and when the storm of tears was gone, she was surprised to feel only a bittersweetness, and not the desperate unhappiness she had expected.

'He was not for you, dearest Amanda,' Rebecca murmured. 'I know how hard it must seem now, but in time you will never even feel this hurt.'

Amanda raised her face to kiss her teacher’s pale cheek. 'I know,' she whispered. 'Rebecca, thank you.'

'For what, child?'

Amanda sighed, and rested her head in Rebecca’s hold. 'For everything.'


End file.
